Amagansett Star-Revue, September 2023

STAR REVUE THE AMAGANSETT

Are there really turtles crossing our roads?

by George Fiala

Possibly I don't get around as much as I should, but I haven't seen a live turtle walking around these parts in many years. What I do see are turtle crossing signs put up by The East Hampton Town Trustees. I was thinking that maybe these signs were nostalgic, reminding us of bygone days. So I decided to find out.

My first stop was the Amagansett Fire Department. The day I showed up there was one man buffing the floor. He looked at me kind of strangely, and more so when I blurted out my question.

"Do you ever get calls to rescue turtles?"

"No, no turtles up a tree or anything. We don't even do cats. We have no time for turtles."

I tried to continue the conversation and asked about my neighbor Gene who has been a long time volunteer. "Nope, he ain't here anymore. Came in one day, took all his stuff and left." Luckily for me, I saw a pesticide truck on the side of the driveway and started talking to Bud Pitts, owner of Naturally Ticked Off.

"Sure, I see plenty of turtles. Just today I picked one up and placed him on the other side of the road. At the intersection of Bandigo and Cranberry Hole Road"

"Cool, there still are turtles around here after all," I thought, knowing I now had a story.

He went on to tell me that of course there used to be more, but with more houses and less habitat you get less animals, and that includes turtles. He told me to seek out Larry Penny. Penny's name came up a few more times in my turtle quest, but I didn't get a chance to connect this time.

I did drive around to the address he provided, which was near the Devon Yacht Club. I looked around for a while but didn't see any animals at all.

I did find a construction crew laying the foundation of a new giant home, and tried to ask them, but nobody spoke English, so I drove on.

At this point I figured might go to the one place that I knew for sure would have information, the name on the turtle signs - the East Hampton Town Trustees. I looked it up and found they had an office on Bluff Road, on the way to Atlantic Beach.

They were open and I explained my quest to a nice young lady at the desk, after she got off the phone with some-

one who seemed to keep on talking. I didn't want to be a pest so I quickly asked my questions. She took my information and said the appropriate Trustee would get back to me soon.

That turned out to be Susan

McGraw

I followed the GPS and actually passed right by, as I was looking for a more commercial looking establishment. It's actually Karen Testa's house, which is across from an orchard on a country road. I wandered in through the front door and found a house with giant black tubs with yellow covers in every room filled with turtles in various stages of health and age, with labels and charts, similar to a human hospital complete with operating rooms, post-op care and neonatal facilities.

Keber who, among her other duties is a member of the East Hampton Town Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee.

We spoke on the phone but we never met in person because she was quite busy with her son's upcoming wedding and a week's vacation to follow. She told me that it was she that created the turtle signs and had them placed wherever a turtle was found. She also sent me the poster for the upcoming Clam Festival. Susan is the chairperson of the festival and tells me it will be the best ever.

She said to seek out Karen Testa, who runs an organization in Jamesport dedicated to rescuing turtles. The next day I gassed up my silver 2000 Taurus and headed up to the North Fork to the Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons.

Ms. Testa graciously gave me her time despite an obvious state of busy and despite the fact that I didn't warn her in advance of my visit. I got a tour, which included meeting her medical techs, seeing newly hatched baby turtles, turtles with recovering wounds, incubators filled with turtle eggs rescued from wounded mother turtles, turtles that have to live in heated outdoor boxes (more on that in a bit), and finally, a stuffed two headed turtle that came to them alive, illustrating one of the results of environmental pollution that threatens all life.

Besides being gracious, Testa is highly passionate about her turtles. She told me that she studied biology in college and got a job with the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Refuge Center in Hampton Bays. She worked there a while but was frustrated in that they would not rescue turtles. "They had no room."

So she went on her own. Testa mentioned that she also is a licensed real estate broker, leaving me thinking that bills had to get paid somehow. But she told me that she does receive donations and grants which help keep the place going.

The drawing I made in my reporters notebook to try and find out if the construction workers had seen any turtles. It didn't work.

The East Hampton Town Trustees Office at 267 Bluff Road, home of the turtle signs.

Sign by the front door of Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons, 111 Manor Lane, Jamesport

Sal Lacarrubba who now works at Balcun Towing, with his friend Bud Pitts of Naturally Ticked Off.

32 Winding Way

Amagansett, NY 11937

gbrook@pipeline.com

Editor & PublishEr George Fiala

FOR EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING OR EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES, email gbrook@pipeline.com text or call (917) 652-9128

Community Directory

Worship

Pizza

Amagansett Library

215 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3810

Amagansett Public School

320 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3572

First Presbyterian Church of Amagansett

350 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6404

First United Methodist Church of East Hampton

Fini Pizza Amagansett

237 Main Street, Amagansett 631-394-5654

Springs Pizza

841 Springs Fireplace Road (631) 907-4039

Marine Museum 301 Bluff Road, Amagansett 631-267-6544

East Hampton Chamber of Commerce

44 Gingerbread Lane, East Hampton 631-537-2900

Publisher ENGINEER • BUILDER • BROKER UNIQUELY EXPERIENCED WITH LOCAL KNOWLEDGE “Saunders, A Higher Form of Realty,” is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Please refer to our website for the names under which our agents are licensed with the Department of State. Equal Housing Opportunity.

East Hampton Town Offices 59 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4141

Southampton Hospital 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton 631-726-8200

35 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4258

St. Michael’s Lutheran Church

486 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6351

St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

286 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-324-0134

St. Peter’s Chapel

465 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton 631-329-0990

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Chapel

102 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3080

The Jewish Center of the Hamptons

44 Woods Lane, East Hampton 631-329-6654

Golf

South Fork Country Club

730 Old Stone Highway, Amagansett (631) 267-3575

East Hampton Golf Club

281 Abrahams Path, East Hampton (631) 324-7007

Sag Harbor Golf Course

Barcelona Neck Road, East Hampton (631) 725-2503

Montauk Downs State Park

Golf Course

50 S Fairview Ave, Montauk (631) 668-5000

Tennis

East Hampton High School

2 Long Lane, East Hampton

Terry King Rec Center

385 Abrahams Path, East Hampton

Herrick Park

67 Newtown Lane, East Hampton

SPORTIME Amagansett

the Red Call Me Today For All Your Hamptons Real Estate Needs Dear Local Businesses and Institutions We want to publicize local things email information to gbrook@pipeline.com or you could mail a flyer or letter to us AMAGANSETT STAR-REVUE, 32 Winding Way, Barnes Landing, NY 11937 if you want an AD, SUBSCRIPTION, want to WRITE for us, or have a COMPLAINT, text or call George 917-652-9128 Next issue is October, deadline for editorial, ads and notices is the last day of September.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

As I might have mentioned last month, the idea for this paper came about kind of suddenly. It wasn't the culmination of any kind of planning or corporate strategy, rather it just seemed like a good idea to me. I started work on our first issue the same day I though about it, which was about a month ago.

Here's the second issue, and already it shows how warmly we've been received, and I'm very grateful.

Instead of having to fill up the pages with photo-spreads, we have real contributions from locals responding to the ad that was in that first paper. Plus even some paid advertising!

Joe Caccamo wrote saying he picked up the first issue at a coffee shop, like it, and penned an article for us. He wasn't sure if we'd print it - quite the opposite, it's a great piece reflecting the contradictions that we all know about living in this beautiful part of the world. Looking forward to the next one.

Deirdre Frost wrote us asking if we'd be interested in a fashion column. That's not something I had planned on, and in all my years of publishing the other Star-Revue (in Brooklyn) we never wrote about fashion. I'm always open to new ideas, and you'll see her fashion observations on page 5.

Nicholas Smith also wrote asking

Oysters are important

Good Afternoon George,

I came across the Amagansett Star Revue in a coffee shop and saw your ad looking for story submissions. I’m working on a community exhibition for my master’s work and I would love for it to be included if it fits with your paper goals. Here is a proposed excerpt:

Oysters are an important species in Long Island’s culture and economy, providing crucial ecosystem services such as water filtration, storm surge protection, and sustainable seafood.

Grace Grimes, a New York Sea Grant graduate fellow, is working on a project collecting stories and photos from people across Long Island to understand their experiences and connections to local waters and oysters. These will be used in a community exhibition and her master’s thesis.

Read the flyer below to participate and visit the project website for additional details: https://www.esf. edu/biology/oysters.php

Looking forward to connecting,

Grace

Editors Note: Lets do it! George

by George Fiala

about contributing. He sent us something he had published in the East Hampton Star, and lo and behold it was a piece on comic books. He mentioned re-reading the very first Silver Surfer, which came out back when I was a kid first coming out to the East End. I was too unhip then to understand literary allusions, but he's not and compared the cosmic surfer to the beat writers. It's such a good article about really much more than comic books, which is what Marvel Comics was in those days. You can read it here bit.ly/3r5GQzj

He came through with a great piece on deadline about Stephen Talkhouse, which along with Marvel Comics is still around from those halcyon days. The first time I saw Rufus Wainwright was at the Talkhouse while he was still in college. It was his father Loudon's show, and he brought Rufus onstage to sing his only hit single, "Deak Skunk in the Middle of the Road" quipping that it's the song paying the college bills. Rufus is now fifty, and a worldwide star, and last month he showed up with his dad again at the Talkhouse, singing "Dead Skunk," only this time Loudon said it had helped him with alimony payments.

I met Ryan Sherman one day while practicing serves at the newly remodeled tennis courts at Herrick Park in Easthampton. He runs a company

Worthy topics

Greetings George,

called Three Mile Media and we got to talking after hitting a few balls. I told him about the paper and he mentioned his upcoming film festival in Montauk, which he took pains to say was different than the big one in East Hampton.

It sounded like a cool thing, and this

the late 1960's, there were lots of small frogs and larger turtles all over the place. Occasionally you'd see one squished on the road, most often by Louse Point, and signs started appearing on Barnes Hole Road to watch out for turtles as they cross the road.

Well, it's more than 50 years later, and turtle crossing signs are all over. But it's been forever since I've seen an actual turtle walking around. I thought maybe the signs were nostalgic. My quest to find the truth of it all became this month's cover story.

Distribution

I'd also like to thank all the places that have agreed to take our paper. Of course, the biggest stops are the supermarkets. The IGAs in Amagansett, East Hampton and Montauk, the Stop and Shop in East Hampton, and Damarks. The next best places where people pick up papers are delis, liquor stores, pizza shops and cafes. Those of you that let me in—a big thank you. Those who didn't... if you change your mind my number is on the back page —give me a call.

issue we have an article and ad from them, and we'll be having our own presence at the festival later this month.

When I first came to these parts in

LETTERS

A plethora of hiking!

Hi George,

And finally, a huge thanks to YOU, the reader! We'd probably keep doing this even without, because we like publishing so much, but with readers hopefully we are doing our own little part in keeping our society functioning.

Full Timer

Congratulations on your first issue of The Star Revue

It’s great that Amagansett has its own independent journal.

I don’t know if you ever visited The Art Barge or the Mabel & Victor D’Amico Studio and Archive.

Both are National Trust for Historic Preservation - Historic Artist Home and Studio sites.

I would gladly meet you and tour through if you have not.

The Art Barge is located out on Napeague Harbor and the Studio and Archive are in Lazy Point. Both in the borders of Amagansett. Might they be able to be listed in your community Directory for future issues? I hate to be left out….. Please let me know if you want to visit.

Best, Chris Editors Note: I would love to but my email response bounced. Send me a new email or maybe I'll just stop by.

George

Just a quick note to say my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the initial edition of The Amagansett Star Review.  We have been coming to Amagansett for many years and moved out here permanently in 2011. We thought the range of topics you covered in the first edition was wide ranging and very informative. If you are looking for additional subjects to cover, you might read up on the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society.  It has over 500 members and cares for over 200 miles of hiking trails out here.  Their website is bit.ly/3P4ioX5. We hope the Amagansett Star Review flourishes and publishes for many years.

Jeff Weinlandt, Amagansett resident Editors Note: I would love to but my email response to you bounced! Send me a new email or maybe I'll just stop by. George

Best of luck, interest, and everything etc with your Amagansett’s own paper. I’ve been around since 1973, the year my girlfriend’s mom bought a little place in Treasure Island Drive, eventually retired and lived happily to 100. My wife inherited and last year, after 42 years on Madison Sq, Flatiron NYC, we moved to the dunes full time. I’m a member of a writers group that meets at the East Hampton Library and a fan of the programs at the Amagansett Library too.

Stephen

Editors Note: My situation is similar. My folks built in Barnes Landing in 1968 and I've been coming out for various amounts of time every year since then. My mom made it to 92, and I've been splitting my summers between here and Brooklyn for the past five years. Now I'll HAVE to come here every month, year round, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

The author holding a Barnes Landing turtle over fifty years ago. (photo by Dr. Alexander Fiala)

TURTLES

(continued from page 1)

One of her big bills is electricity. She showed me an outdoor box which she

"Sometimes they stay by the turtle, waiting for us to pick it up. But you have no idea how may idiots will hit a turtle, put it on the other side of the road, go home, and only then call us. Most of the time those turtles go deeper into the woods to die. They are hard to find."

Other mistakes people make are to bring turtles to the ocean or bay. "The ocean is not for turtles!" she tells me vehemently. "Salt water kills turtles."

from the garden. It's not that often that you see someone willing to sacrifice a more lucrative career in order to pursue their particular passion. Karen Testa is one of those people.

built to house an African turtle that started out as a kids pet turtle and has become huge living under her care.

"Kids go see the Ninja Turtle movie," she told me, "and pester their parents for a turtle. They get one at the pet shop and most of the time those are black market turtles from Africa. Sooner or later the kids get tired of the turtle and they get put out in the backyard or the woods. As soon as it gets cold the turtle will die."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because turtles here hibernate. Turtles are cold blooded animals and cannot take freezing weather. Native American turtles have learned to hibernate in the winter, living in the mud. Since it never gets cold in Africa, those turtles never evolved to hibernate."

The African turtle box is heated constantly from fall the spring, which is the source of huge electric bills. But Testa would rather pay the bill than to let even one of those entrusted to her die.

I asked how she gets the turtles. "We get phone calls at all times of day and night from people who will call us, mostly about a turtle that got hit by a car."

In addition to the house, there is a large backyard which serves as a sanctuary for unreleasable turtles, as well as a beautiful place for humans to relax and meditate.

While the goal is to bring sick and disabled turtles back to a state in which they can be taken back to their own neck of the woods, some turtles do remain permanently disabled. These are the ones who live in the backyard, and which Karen and her helpers prepare food for daily.

Speaking of food, among other things turtles eat a lot of greens. I noticed vegetable gardens around the house and in the backyard and at least part of the year turtle diets come right

DEC a roadblock to more oyster reefs

The East Hampton Town Trustees have been governing this area since the pre-colonial days of the 17th century. Their office is on Bluff Road in Amagansett and these days are concerned mostly with our shores and protected lands. Public meetings are held on a regular basis, and on August 28 they met to discuss three issues—oysters, clams and bacteria. Trustees present included Den Dollinger, Tim Garneau, Bill Taylor, John Aldred and David Cateletto. The first presentation was made by Dr. Christopher Gobler who is the Director of the Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University. The concern is deaths and illnesses reported this summer on both sides of Long Island Sound. He said that the warmer water and increased rainfall (especially in July) served to make the waters more hospitable to the bacterium Vibrio vulnificus. The people who died went swimming and most likely had open wounds, which is how they became infected. Others became sick after ingesting local shellfish. The solution there is if you go clamming, make sure that you

pack everything in ice immediately. This is what the commercial fisheries are required to do by law. Dr. Gobler said that his Center is working on a study expected to be out by the end of the year which will give much more information.

Next the Trustees heard from the South Fork Sea Farmers. They promote the marine environment. Among their projects are oyster gardening, and they maintain three oyster reefs in Accabonac Harbor. They serve two purposes: erosion mitigation and improving water quality. They would like to add two more reefs, but need approval from the NYS DEC. For whatever reason, DEC would quickly approve moving rather than adding, which is unfortunate, but what they have to do right now. The Trustees gave approval and will help them with the DEC however they can. Finally, planning for the upcoming Clam Contest was discussed. The Contest, as advertised on the next page, will be celebrated on Sunday, September 24, and promises to be the crustacean event of the season!

Karen Testa

This turtle started out small in a pet store. It's been living in the Turtle Rescue heated box for years and has gotten huge. (photos by Fiala)

Fudd after his broken shell operation. He is recovering nicely.

Embracing the Latest Hamptons Fashion

by Deirdre Frost

This summer in the Hamptons there is a very casual, laid-back simplicity with upscale, colorful print designs that characterizes much of the style in the Hamptons. Sauntering down Main Street, I see a recurring casual style with a distinct upscale elegance. It’s possible to view an individual’s ripped jeans and faded tee-shirt worn ten summers that are beginning to fray, but still are favorite attire.

With an apparent upscale style coupled with very vivid patterns by leading fashion designers, this is a prevailing trend within the Hamptons. Locals purchase expensive Gucci handbags as accessories to go with their torn jeans and tee shirts. At Chanel, a certain exclusiveness is noted, contrasting the sophisticated elegant style with a very relaxed, casual look. Entering by appointment, women wearing flip flops and torn jeans are ushered in by a burly doorman, creating a contrasting taste. During summer, women are seen elegantly dressed wearing very bright colored design and interesting patterned dresses.

These followers of fashion parade on the streets while frequenting the boutiques and coffee bars. They often enjoy peering into the designer shops to view the latest displays of clothing.

Young teenagers are just as fashionable but seem less likely to follow any norm in how they dress. They often enjoy drinking their lattes while in animated conversations on the main street.

These styles coexist, many with leading designer labels. With so much to choose from, they often prefer to dress in very simple basic clothes. This fashion trend creates a real vibe that seems to be part of the Hamptons scene. For just about any occasion, whether having an intimate dinner party or attending a charity polo event, fashion plays an important accoutrement for a Hampton soiree. This fashionable vibe creates joie de vivre that is an exciting part of living in the Hamptons.

Offshore Film Festival returns to Montauk

The second annual Offshore Art & Film Festival will take place on September 23rd and September 24th at Hero Beach Club in Montauk from 3-10 pm.

Saturday will feature photographers and their large format art during the day across the outdoor lawn spacewhere you can browse their works on display! A live Q&A panel will discuss the components of photography and the new digital age of media (including Drone photography conversations with DJI Drone Artist Joanna Steidle - @ hamptonsdroneart on Instagram). The panel will also have local photographer Jarrett Steil.

Around 6 pm a film panel discussion will be followed by a fun night of film screenings from all around the world. Popcorn and refreshments

will be served from Candied Anchor along with free Activations from Beam Suntory and Montaukila. Surfboard curations on display from Adam Mar Surf Shop in Montauk, and the entire event is “Powered by Popl,” which is the marketing sponsor for the networking of the events.

Sunday will be a similar format, the only differences are that Sunday will feature 3 artists/painters (not photographers) Film screenings will follow more panel discussions and live music and the festival will end with an award ceremony.

Tickets, including an inclusive VIP festival pass can be purchased online at the festival website, bit.ly/483AVeM, which you can also find by googling Offshore Art and Film Festival.

Stephen Talkhouse: The season in review

by Nicholas James Smith

When I think of what it was like at the Talkhouse this past year, the first thing that comes to mind is the party bands. It seemed like every night at ten o’clock, definitely every weekend night at ten o’clock, a band would come on stage and play upbeat covers of popular rock tunes, inspiring a sea of mostly young patrons to dance. Some of my most fun moments out were during these sets, but more recently they have felt stale and unoriginal. It isn’t so much the musicianship, or the lack of original songs that bothers me, but the pace of many of these sets seemed rushed and overly-energized. It felt like some of these bands couldn’t slow down, and were only concerned with keeping the party going, rather than expressing themselves as artists. The acts that play the Talkhouse are talented, and I’d like to see some of these party bands step up and create a less obvious party with their sound. I think customers could handle it and might even enjoy it, after all— music has no limits.

Smaller, more intimate shows were plentiful at The Talkhouse as usual this past year, and every few weeks, usually during the week, you could catch something good. The first Talkhouse show I saw this past year that gave me hope was Mipso. What I heard was a talented band playing original songs from the heart — music rooted in

folk and country traditions, but with more modern, alternative twist. Their vocal harmonies were exactly what you want from a young band formed in North Carolina, and the violin added a rich texture to their performance. Their sound is reminiscent The Avett Brothers, but something about the modern edge to their style reminded me of Fleet Foxes. Mipso just came back to the Talkhouse in August for another show, promoting a new record Book of Fools. I had to miss this one, but if it was anything like their first go-around at the Talk last season I’m sure it was great.

Another highlight was seeing Anna Shoemaker, an artist out of Brooklyn by way of Philadelphia who sings a well balanced mix of pop and indie-

based singer-songwriter music and transforming it into a danceable or at least rockable pop song. Through this transformation, she is able to take topics such as lovesickness and the pitfalls of youthful indulgence, and make their weight seem less heavy. Her show at the Talkhouse was a great blend of her more subdued solo acoustic sound, as well her pop sound with a band behind her. Recently I had the pleasure of seeing GE Smith, Jim Welder, and Larry Campbell perform their show “Masters of the Telecaster”.

rock, with influences from hip-hop and electronica. What I like about Anna Shoemaker is that she’s capable of taking deeply personal guitar

I loved the show, but mainly I loved the idea of the show—three seasoned veterans all playing the same kind of guitar, which, by the way, is the kind of guitar you imagine in your head when you imagine live music coming out of a bar like the Talkhouse. The telecaster tends to be a little bit twangy, a little bit crunchy, a whole lot smooth. The show felt a little boring at first, but I think they were just warming up before completely letting loose. The show crescendoed with their rendition of “Down By The River”, which unsurprisingly turned into a loud and monstrous jam—Smith, Welder, and Campbell all taking turns backing each other up while the others ripped louder, faster, and higher solos over the booming chorus. They looked like they were having fun, too.

Ripe and Coyote Island

The most interesting show I saw at the Talkhouse in the last year was also a recent one: Ripe with opening act Coyote Island. Most people were there to see Ripe. They sounded great, super tight band playing soulful funky jazzy uplifting music. Ripe was playing really uplifting music that night, and it was great. And whatever the frontman of Coyote Island was doing with his voice and his guitar beforehand was the opposite of uplifting— and it worked perfectly. Coyote Island was playing these chilling, haunting, spooky, dreamy pop tunes, casting a strange spell over the room. You couldn’t help but listen, yet it seemed like nobody was paying attention. And it wasn’t the blues either, which was refreshing.

World famous pop musician Ed Sheeran played the Talkhouse on August 14th of this year, which just goes to show the caliber of a venue that Talkhouse is, has been, and hopefully will continue to be. And speaking of caliber and what I didn’t get to see at the Talkhouse this year, I would have liked to have seen reggae legends Steel Pulse. I also would have liked to see Mipso take the stage again. The Holy Grail of Talkhouse shows, Steve Earle, will have come to town and left by the time this is printed. Other than that, some local acts that have shows coming up at the Talkhouse include Hopefully Forgiven on September 15 (their song “Any Day”, which you can find online, should be enough to take a chance on this local band if you haven’t heard them before). If you aren’t afraid of noise, you like improvisational music or you like punk rock, check out Su$hi / Student Body on the September 23rd. Nancy Atlas has two shows, one on the September 16th, and one with India Eaton on the 28th. If you don’t mind taking a risk, go see the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tribute band Four Way Street on September 30th. October in Amagansett things slow down, including the frequency of shows at the Talkhouse. October would be a good month to go see each party band that plays the 10 pm slot on weekend nights. Mark your calendars though, Friday November 17th is not a night to miss this year.

First, local blues singer Annie Trezza takes the stage, followed by DJ flykai, who “mixes dance music and house remixes to create a rhythmic collage for dance hungry fools”, according to the Talkhouse website. The Annie Trezza / DJ fllykai lineup could be the most interesting combination since Coyote Island opened up for Ripe. The following night Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks will take the stage, and I might still be dancing from the night before.

Nicholas James Smith is a musician and writer from New York City living in East Hampton. He enjoys surfing, and is currently pursuing a career as a software engineer. E-mail: njsmith6@ gmail.com

The following night Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks will take the stage, and I might still be dancing from the night before.

Loudon Wainwright continued a 35 year annual tradition by appearing at the at the Talkhouse last month. He sang a number of songs with his son Rufus, and attempted to raffle a pick he found backstage that he claimed belonged to Ed Sheeran, or somebody like that.

The Beauty Amongst the Beasts

by Joe Caccamo

Human beings are animals but we march towards caging ourselves in misery with our incessant quest of consumption… of alcohol and drugs and buying things we don’t need and diving into relationships with people who don’t see us and therefore make us feel miserable. We do it to spiritually bypass, to avoid pain, to avoid facing ourselves and our truths that in doing so, would in fact liberate us. We become enslaved by our possessions, obsessed with dysfunctional relationships that feed our original wounds, and we poison our bodies with the stuff that’s supposed to help us forget.

It’s a great paradox of humanity that we are the only animals capable of caging other animals, yet we choose to cage ourselves as well.

This was the sentiment delivered to me the other day by a shopkeeper in the Amagansett Square who quadruples as my psychotherapist, life coach, shaman, Abby of the Dearest Kind and Oracle of The Truth.

I had commented that so many people walking through her store, and who I encounter on a typical summer weekend in the Hamptons, are so wound up, so obnoxiously entitled, so seemingly incapable of simple, kind gestures, so not here right now, which is a damn shame, considering where we are. Don’t get me wrong … many are wonderful, magical, kind and generous, but …

I recall the wonderful spiritualist cum politician Marianne Williamson say, “where people are obnoxious is not where they are bad … it’s where they are wounded.”

My friend, the Amagansett Square shopkeeper sees it all every day … the good, the bad, the obnoxious, the wounded, the ugly athleisurewear outfits, the entitled attitudes that define the Hamptons summer weekender who treats her like Beyonce’s personal chef, gonged out of bed at 3 am for a four-cheese omelette. It’s the yin and yang, ebony and ivory, darkness and light that defines life in the Hamptons. Brutal, beautiful, comic and tragic contrasts of wealth and faking it, and grace and abhorrence, conspicuous consumption and ignoble mendicant tackiness dressed up (or barely dressed) in Alo yoga pants and sports bra, mistaking, or co-opting designer spirituality for the real thing.

People who come here for a weekend are beautiful and they are terrible. They are amazing survivors and wildly successful visionaries. They are alpha. They are beta. Some are sucking off the teat of generational wealth awe-inspiring fashion. Some wear “the uniform” of GQ Summertime du jour. Others assume the scruffy visage of the Brooklyn cool-guy surfer with a practiced insouciance and perfected man-bun transported in a vintage Bronco that makes me feel like all of my life choices have been wrong, and that I belly flopped into the shallow end of the gene pool. It’s grandma’s minestrone, a soup of humanity that smells good, maybe tastes good, but is a real mess when you take a really good and deep look at it, and can rot quickly.

What’s fun about it all, amazing about it all, fascinating about it all, is if you look up, over their shoulders, and you tune out the chatter … about $80 Balenciaga t-shirts, and hedge funder hook-ups, Surf Lodge reservations and luxe skin care routines, GWagons and Pilates, galas, and golf, Maidstones and fair maidens, you remember that you’re in this incredibly beautiful place that has some real answers, real rewards beyond the noise. The Hamptons is/are one of the most physically breath-taking spits of land on earth … and Amagansett, the crown jewel. Stop, or at least slow down. Take a breath. Look around.

What do you see?

You see the people who “get it” pull into the beach parking lots around 5 pm, their dogs slobbering at the windows of their 1982 Wagoneers in delicious anticipation. That’s the magic hour when the silly people stuck in

the dream have departed to iron their white pants for rose at the Crow’s Nest. At this hour, the sun is low enough to cast her longer shadow, spellbind ing the contours of the ocean as if in a Winslow Homer periscope, sea grass in panoply of golden green hues that dance upon the dunes in the ecstatic fashion of a Bedouin enchantress gift ing the heroes of war.

You see the trees as if for the first time, fecund explosions of life’s irrepressibility, Zen masters, all of them, who remind us, if we are paying attention, that life has its seasons, its deaths, its rebirths, its resiliency, its gifts of standing tall and whispering quietly. Grace.

You see the farms and are reminded how far removed much of our food sources have become from God’s golden homestead. A tractor sits at the edge of the field, a rusted red, or perhaps a green that looks black against the sun, and you wonder if the thing is actively functioning or if it has been placed there by a designer to make your stomach spasm in longing to a place and time you’ve never known but that somehow sits in the helixes of your DNA, as if we’re all descendants of pilgrims. You till the land from a field, not from a computer at your stand-up desk. And here in Amagansett, the yield is sold by the farmers, at a farm stand.

You look at the gorgeous cedar shake Amagansett Free Library, a building thought to be built around 1790, and you imagine settlers with names like Johnson, Hildreth, Baker and Conklin living in these structures, on peaceful terms with the Montauk Indians, and you laugh and say, “Holy Shit, if those

damn Puritans only spent 10 minutes in the Talkhouse on any given Friday night now!”

You slow down. You feel wind and sea, always a rustling of leaves. You stun by the beauty everywhere you turn, and then you smile with more compassion for those with their shopping bags and hurrying gates, noses to their iPhones, regretting behaviors of last night, anxious about today, incapable of meeting your eyes for a little recognition of a fellow human being. And you tell yourself, that’s okay … nobody can mess with me in this glorious place. This is beautiful.

Joe Caccamo lives between Amagansett and Santa Monica (for now). He’s a surfer, a sometimes painter, a bass player and a pot calling the kettle black but he’s trying to work it out.

Northern Cardinal Tufted Titmouse Black-capped Chickadee Blue Jay Downy Woodpecker Carolina Wren Grey Catbird

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology App is named Merlin.

Above is the list of birds heard on my back porch in Barnes Landing on the morning of August 7th 2023 as identified by Merlin. In July 2022, Merlin identified the wren that nests under the eave as an House Wren; but this year all the reports have been for the Carolina Wren.

This past week I caught a glimpse of that Carolina Wren: with that long white eyebrow stripe. Questions to ponder: Will the marauding squirrels get them? Will they predatorially destroy the nests of other birds? Will they supplant the former house wren habitat under the eaves? Will be on the lookout next spring.

by Shapiro, drawing courtesy

Neil Young

Others assume the scruffy visage of the Brooklyn cool-guy surfer with a practiced insouciance and perfected man-bun transported in a vintage Bronco that makes me feel like all of my life choices have been wrong, and that I belly flopped into the shallow end of the gene pool.

The Hollywood Strikes are About the Future: Of Culture, of Work, of America

Studs Terkel’s 1974 book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do is a lot of things: a landmark oral history, a monument to conversation, a snapshot of labor across classes and collars at a particular unsettled moment in American history. It’s also a testament to how little things change.

Working captures the experiences of more than 100 working people from seemingly all fields: farming and manufacturing, sports and the arts, the trades and the vocations, waitresses and bureaucrats, organizers and meter readers. And on and on. It’s a staggering slice of American culture, and a unique prism through which to view it.

When Terkel stepped back to see what these Americans revealed about work in America — indeed, about America — he found some commonalities. People wanted their work to mean something more than a paycheck, and they wanted to mean something through their work. “In all instances, there is felt more than a slight ache,” Terkel writes in his introduction. “In all instances, there dangles the impertinent question: Ought not there be an increment, earned though not yet received, from one’s daily work — an acknowledgement of man’s being?” A lot of his opening statement will sound — and feel — familiar to anyone who works for a living, especially if that means sacrificing aspirations and compromising on principles to ensure you have health insurance or, more importantly, a roof over your head. But as Working makes plain, and our lived experience verifies, working for survival increasingly means ever deeper sacrifices, compromises, and debasement just to prove — over the ever-expanding chasm of wealth and opportunity that exists between the rank and file and management — that you’re worthy of the job. (The weaponization of “work ethic” also comes in for harsh treatment from Terkel and his people.)

But there’s one piece of Terkel’s introduction that screams off the page.

“Perhaps it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence of people is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they make. Or see,” Terkel writes. “It is perhaps this fear of no longer being needed in a world of needless things that most clearly spells out the unnaturalness, the surreality of much

by Dante A. Ciampaglia

that is called work today.”

This specter is the axis upon which the conversation around artificial intelligence turns — the axis which Silicon Valley and corporate America barons, ultimate peddlers of needless things, don’t want people to dwell on. (Just go back to creating weird images and text with DALL-E and ChatGPT. It will help you become a “prompt engineer” when you’re downsized out of a career.) And it’s central to the twin strikes roiling — and, hopefully, upending forever — Hollywood.

Members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike on May 2. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) joined them on July 14. It was the first time both unions struck at the same time since 1960. (In one of history’s great ironies, Ronald Reagan was SAG president at the time.) A central issue then was residuals — what creatives get paid after the initial run of a film or TV episode. Television gave movies an afterlife that didn’t previously exist, which meant executives cashing in endlessly on work they only had to paid for once. That strike lasted 148 days and, in part, created a residuals system that allowed actors — not superstar celebrities, but working stiff who are bit players or background fillers — to have a career. Cut to 63 years later, and residuals are still an issue thanks to streaming services like Netflix and Max (née HBO Max) refusing to share data with anyone involved with a film or show it creates. Why? Because, they claim, it will harm its primary intellectual property: blackbox algorithms that serve up content with increasing specificity to its subscribers. They pay handsomely up front, but after that comes barely a trickle of residual checks. And anyone who thinks they’re owed something for propping up this new, and frankly unsustainable, business model, executives say, are just immature babies.

“There’s a level of expectation that they have is just not realistic,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said at the outset of the SAG strike. “And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.” Try cutting into his $15 million salary, which he got in 2022, and see how fast that tune changes.

Where things get truly dire is with the introduction of AI. At the beginning of the SAG strike, chief negotiator

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland revealed a dystopic sticking point in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP): “They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation.” For its part, the AMPTP said sure they’d scan people’s faces but, trust them, they’ll only use the scans for that specific production. And there emerges Terkel’s specter. “Why should I care about what a rich actor gets paid?” It’s the question looming over these strikes. But putting aside that this is less about whether some celebrity gets paid more and all about whether a working actor gets paid anything, it’s also about whether someone will be able to simply work. When we hear about AI, things tend to fall back to a debate over whether it will take our jobs. I confess to being optimistic in the long term — probably naively, probably wrongly. But what the SAG/WGA strikes confirm are realities labor has always struggled against. Any chance management has to undercut workers — whether it’s using AI to write a script or casting digital actors or automating an assembly line — it’ll take it. And any chance management has to completely replace human beings with technology, it’ll take that, too. It doesn’t even have to be whiz-bang fancy like AI. In Barbara Kopple’s masterful 1976 documentary Harlan County, USA, about a brutal coal miners strike in rural Kentucky, an old timer recalls the mine operators demanding he take care with one of the mules on the site. If it dies, he remembers the boss saying, “we have to buy another mule. We can always hire another man.” Later in the film, one-time United Mine Workers of America president John L. Lewis rails against management “who desires to make money from your misery.”

And so we come to the point, as Terkel was fond of saying. Automation, AI, robots — whatever technology greets us will always be seized upon to grease the wheels of the “planned obsolescence of people.” That could be coal mines or steel mills or auto plants or doctors’ offices or white-collar cubicle farms. (You

hear lots of stories in this mode growing up in a union steelworker household.) Hollywood is an unexpected venue for the first skirmish in this fight. But centered as it is on a very showy bit of innovation, why not work it out on the streets of the world’s culture factory? Those who control what we see and where we see it will try convincing us that these are inane whiny tantrums of the “elite.” Don’t buy it. Don’t believe it. This fight is happening around movies and TV today, but it’s headed for everyone else soon. “An assembly line is a line is a line,” as Terkel writes. And it’s a fight worth having — not only for the inhumane, indefensible gulf between what management takes and what the rank-and-file makes but because the future of work is at stake: for us, our children, their children, and our nation. After all, if media moguls are willing to unhesitatingly replace actors with AI-generated avatars, what chance do any of us stand when the tech industry shows up at our boss’ office with promises of eliminating pesky human inefficiencies?

“When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run, we have a problem,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in announcing the strike. “At some point the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. We are labor, and we stand tall. And we demand respect. And to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth because you cannot exist without us.”

The WGA/SAG strikes are about the struggle for a fair wage and for basic respect — for an acknowledgement of one’s being. And it isn’t just the demand of Hollywood writers and actors. It’s the demand of everyone — blue collar, white collar, no collar — who wonders why they’re working harder and longer than ever yet rubbing pennies together simply to exist while executives hoard all the gains and who will junk you without thought if it meant a bigger cut for them.

We all have a stake in the outcome of what’s happening in Hollywood. Our planned obsolescence is imminent if those in power have anything to say about it. They’re imagining — and building — a world where they can exist without us.

Photo credit: UFCW770/flickr.

A band everyone should like. There was a time, back in the distant 1980s and ‘90s, when recording and distribution outpaced the spread of information. The post-punk DIY movement encouraged artists and fans to seize the means of production and make their own records and zines but there was no guarantee they’d end up in the same places. As a result, there were bands with cool names that you’d never hear and records with cool covers that you didn’t know anything about. That first category, for example, included, for me, Virgin Prunes, whom I recently listened to for the first time after my friend Rui sang me their well deserved praises. They’d always just been one of those names I meant to get, at least to since the Internet happened, and I’m happy at last to have felt their jagged edge.

were unlike anything I’d heard before and, to be honest, anything I’ve heard since: funny, proto–fast folk songs of lesbian heartache and betrayal; grinding punk songs about anorexia and macho hardcore attitudes; a fairly uncategorizable song finding empathy for a misunderstood and maligned Jesus Christ. Interspersed among them were dissonant dirges, babies singing at bathtime, short song fragments and other auditory ephemera. It’s an enchanting oddball of an album.

The only album Meat Joy ever made remained pretty well hidden from the digital age—I’ve only ever found 2 or 3 of the cuts on YouTube and the whole thing never saw reissue or made it to streaming, at least until now. The 1984 slice of perfection will become available to the masses on Oct. 13 as download or LP, with an option for a handmade cover, via Bandcamp. (The band also contributed tracks to at least a couple of indie comps which, sadly, haven’t been included.)

Fronting the group, it turns out, was Gretchen Phillips, later one of Two Nice Girls. And confirming those ancient rumors, the recently departed Butthole Surfer Teresa Nervosa is heard on drums. The band will be reuniting for a couple of Austin dates around the release. If anyone’s driving from NYC, let me know.

oscillators to his rig. The end result is more than a little like early recordings by no wave legends Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. REMOSS2 (cassette and download out in June via Ramp Local) revisits the tunes from the last album with remixes by NAH, Machine Girl, President Evil, GHÖSH, Avola, Giant Claw, Fire-Toolz, and Bl_ank, adding sexy synths and heavier dance rhythms in ways that are sometimes hilarious and sometimes just great, heady fun. Remix albums often end up as reductive, LCD exercises. REMOSS2 is a strong companion piece and a good excuse to catch up if you missed the previous moss.

Top of the other list was Meat Joy. I knew two people with copies of their self-released, self-titled 1984 LP, each with a different, handmade cover. Story was they were from Texas, and friends with the Butthole Surfers, that one of the Surfers was even on the album, or something like that. There was no way to check, of course, but it all scanned. (I figured out later that the band took its name from a film by the feminist artist Carolee Schneeman. A DC punk band later also used the name.)

One of my friend’s copies eventually ended up in my collection. The cover was a simple cartoon of a wildly happy woman, rendered in magic marker, declaring “Meat Joy—A Band Everyone Should Like” against a background of colorful, diagonal stripes. That gloriously joyful lady wasn’t wrong.

The contents of the white label LP

Mossy songs and the siren who sings them. Last year, the Portland duo Sea Moss set a personal high water mark with their SEAMOSS2. Their fried and blistered beats had never worked better. I’m not sure if their new remix album bests it, but it certainly builds on the fractured grooves. Vocalist Noa Ver sings and screams in a language all her own, frequently distorted by a microphone set against her neck. It’s odd that sirens have been imagined by such human standards; I’d think they’d drive sailors crazy with such alien, animal calls as Ver’s. Drummer Zach D’Agostino adds homemade electronics such as hacked feedback

Youth is wasted on the dumb. Say what you will about Miley Cyrus, and people do, she’s got a hell of a voice and a great sense of harmony. (Check out her acoustic “Backyard Sessions” videos if you haven’t already). And while I’m hardly her target audience, she occasionally lays out a track that I do love. “Wrecking Ball” is truly heart-wrenching, “We Can’t Stop” is a surprising, downtempo party anthem, and her unapologetic, new “Used to Be Young” acknowledges her wild side, doesn’t exactly promise she’s past it and, most importantly, showcases her dynamic voice. She’s going to be around for a long time, and the new single promises to be a staple in her concerts for years to come. Turning 30 last year might have turned her thoughts toward fading youth. Another 10 or 20 years will only ripen the song and wizen her voice.

Quinn on Books

The Lunatics Are Running the Asylum

Review of “Kappa" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated from the Japanese by Allison

Markin Powell and Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

Review by Michael Quinn

Did you go on any trips this summer? Traveling has many benefits. You might interact with different people, learn a new language, and discover things about another culture’s values. Whenever you go someplace new, you see the world with fresh eyes—and sometimes the home you return to with a critical one.

Patient No. 23 came back from his trip worse for the wear. He is recuperating in a psychiatric hospital outside of Tokyo. An unnamed narrator introduces us to the “youthful-looking madman” and relays his tale in “Kappa” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927). Allison Markin Powell and Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda recently collaborated on a modern translation of one of the prolific shortstory writer’s final works.

Before the patient’s mental breakdown, he had set out for a summer mountain hike. He gets disoriented by a rising fog. Suddenly, he catches a glimpse of a strange creature and gives chase, falling into a hole and waking up in a strange (yet strangely familiar) world.

Kappa Land looks a lot like Tokyo, only on a smaller (more miniature) scale; for Kappa, slimy things with chameleonlike skin, beaky mouths, and webbed hands and feet stand only three feet tall. They have pouches in their stomachs and oval-shaped plates on their heads. These creatures view the man as a curiosity, nurse him to health, and invite him to live among them.

At first, the man has a hard time with their language, which sounds like squawking. “Qua,” says one. “Quax, quax!” says another. As the man acclimates, he befriends different Kappas. Each has something different to teach him, whether about love (the females do the pursuing), birth (a Kappa child decides whether or not to be born), or religion (the Kappas practice Lifeism, which is devoted to eating, drinking, and copulating, and takes as its saints such luminaries as the Swedish playwright Strindberg, the German philosopher Nietzsche, and the Russian writer Tolstoy: each a freethinker who clashed with the conventions of his day).

Yet the man struggles to come to terms with the Kappas’ absurdist ways: “They find amusing the things humans take seriously, while at the same time, they take seriously things that we are amused by,” he realizes. For example, regarding politics, Geyl, a factory owner, explains that “every speech is a complete lie. But everyone knows that, so in the end, it

might as well be the truth.”

While the man is sometimes horrified by the Kappas’ amorality (workers, displaced by machines, are eaten), what finally pushes him over the edge is the hypocrisy of human culture: pretending to be something that we’re not, pretending to care about things that we don’t. The Kappas don’t love this two-faced existence of ours either. “We Kappas, unlike you—ugh, never mind,” one begins, abandoning the unfavorable comparison.

“Kappa” takes many shots at “modern” society. While written almost 100 years ago, readers will recognize in its pages that we’re still living in the same kind of capitalist world it takes issue with. The novel’s 17 short chapters also tackle such heavy topics as war (including the one between the sexes) and the burdens of family life. Yet “Kappa” is not a straight-up satire. It’s more complex and existential. It’s amusing, disturbing, and strange, haunted by recurring images of bare branches against an empty sky—the ramblings of an alleged madman, imprisoned presumably for his good against his own will for speaking out about obvious truths the collective would prefer to deny.

In his book “Words of a Fool,” the Kappa philosopher Magg advises, “The wisest way to live is to scorn the customs of one’s age while still abiding by them.” Isn’t any philosophy of life a kind of survival guide? Perhaps this was one by which Akutagawa could not abide. Shortly after he wrote this story, he killed himself. “Kappa” could be read as a kind of suicide note. It’s a quick read that will leave a long-lasting impression.

Boxes of old COMIC BOOKS lying around?

Jazz by Grella The State of Shipp

by George Grella

Pianist Matthew Shipp has had such a consistent, sustained career, nearly 40 years as one of the foremost free jazz players, that it’s easy to lose sight of what he’s done as a musician. His built a grand discographical forest through his own albums and those on which he’s part of another ensemble—coming up with the important David S. Ware Quartet, he’s played so frequently with musicians like bassists William Parker and Michael Bisio, saxophonist Rob Brown, and drummers Whit Dickey and Newman Taylor Baker, that they seem to be part of the same musical family, making records and concert appearances because they’re together all the time anyway (this is not far from the truth, as noted below). The trees to this forest are fascinating and notable, though, and it’s rewarding to pay attention to them, including collaborations with Antipop Consortium, J. Spaceman, Ivo Perelman, and some new and recent albums that are among the finest releases of the past few years: Daniel Carter’s Seraphic Light (AUM Fidelity, 2018) and Welcome Adventure Vol. 1 (577 Records, 2020); Pathways from the trio of Shipp, guitarist Gordon Grdina, and bassist Mark Helias (Attaboygirl Records, 2022); andThe Intrinsic Nature of Shipp, a beautiful, deep solo album that comes out later this month on Mahakala Music.

Shipp is a challenging musician, and that is the highest of compliments and recommendations. There is a real cultural divide in music, but it’s not between styles, racial groups, or high and low. It’s between music that is a manufactured product based around selling stardom—the music “industry”—and music that comes out of the human imperative of expression within a social culture. That latter kind of music isn’t challenging or difficult—there is no such thing as difficult music (except if you’re an arts institution administrator or addicted to the idea that money and fame are the only qualities that matter)—but it is a different experience. It’s not always three minutes and a steady backbeat, or any kind of self-contained unit. Often it’s something that you don’t understand the first time through, or even the second, or the fifth, but that is coaxing out sensations you don’t usually have, that promises something you can’t put into words, that has layers that keep going, that’s beautiful in a way that’s new.

That is the subject that’s wrapped in the riddle of a new, short book by Clifford Allen, Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on RogueArt, the French free jazz label. Shipp has recorded several hundred albums, and the book explores his discography on RogueArt—which amounts to about two dozen—and is published by the label.

For a listener interested in Shipp and/or the New York free jazz scene, the book is an intriguing introduction. It’s elliptical by design; Shipp isn’t the direct focus, rather the book outlines him by featuring interviews with some of his most important musical colleagues, like Dickey and Brown. This does demand a context of knowledge and experience that goes

beyond the book, so this is not meant for the general reader.

Allen has been listening to Shipp closely for decades, and captures the pianist’s ongoing development—one of the thrilling and even moving qualities in his playing has been hearing him shed things that have been less than his absolutely authentic voice, which has him at a place now where there’s a sparkle and joy in everything he plays, even when he’s creating thick, dark textures, the feeling that he’s surprising and delighting himself.

The conversations that Allen has tell a complementary story, one that in a sense is the real subject of the book, which is of New York City in general and the East Village/Lower East Side specifically as the home to free jazz. In the same way that Dixieland is part of the cultural DNA of New Orleans, and modern blues is rooted in Chicago even if its made in Germany, so is free jazz in the post-Coltrane world a New York City music. It is of course global in practice, a freefloating geography that spans cities and countries, but the musicians who are at its core, who connect with each other in various ensembles and reach across continents, have historically been concentrated in a niche in Manhattan—Shipp has been living on East 3rd Street for decades—and their musical lives are inextricable from their social lives and their being as citizens of the city. They play together and live in the same community, share the same experiences. What makes Shipp such a satisfying challenge is that he doesn’t much sound like anyone else, and each time you encounter his playing, he sounds like he’s on his way to something else—his musical ideas aren’t complete phrases that come to an end that is a culmination of what’s come before, but the beginnings of paragraphs and chapters that you still haven’t gotten to. He’s always ahead and pacing himself further away, but it’s not hard to follow him because his path is always clear, give it attention and you’ll never lose your way.

There’s a thing in music promotion where press releases often come with a listing of other artists, i.e. listen to this if you like to listen that. If I were writing

a press release for Shipp, it would be something like, listen to this if you like to listen to: Miles Davis from his 1965-68 Quintet and electric eras; the Symphony No. 7 by Jean Sibelius; Varése; Jimmy Lyons. This is not that Shipp is bound to any idea of eclecticism, in fact it’s something more like a very focussed, rich, and idiosyncratic spirituality, something that strikes me as a very American, earthy, no-frills Christianity that is searching and in no way egoistic, privately and sincerely mystical and even esoteric. His range isn’t other music that he’s collected, it comes from inside himself. Since the first generation of jazz musicians, every player has learned by listening to their favorites who came before, picking up and transforming stylistic ideas. So of course, when Shipp plays you can hear bits of Ellington, Monk, Bill Evans, Mal Waldron, and others. Those are nods to things he likes and that he can use in the moment, exploring an improvisation, so one piece may have dense chords that remind the ears of Evans; Shipp’s hands gleefully stomping the way Ellington would; a tight logic between rhythm, melody, and harmony, a la Monk. Those are variations, important details—listen to a whole set, or a whole album, whether Shipp is a leader or a sideman, and what you hear is someone who is in the ongoing creation of his own language and style. To go back to the literary metaphor, Shipp is writing an enormous, fantastical, fascinating, and even entertaining novel, and it comes out in complete and coherent sentences. Allen quotes Shipp alluding to this in his own playing. Talking about his friendship and working relationship with the great poet Steve Dalachinksy, who was an essential part of the free jazz scene, Shipp says: “He understands my perspective…and how that relates to American literature…and also how I’m a builder of architecture in the way that Borges is—he gets that Labyrinths is a massive, massive influence on me…”

That’s the challenge and the reward, beyond hearing someone stitch notes together in time, listening to Shipp means listening to an artist thinking, feeling, and building in real time. It’s knowing someone through sound.

There is a real cultural divide in music, but it’s not between styles, racial groups, or high and low. It’s between music that is a manufactured product based around selling stardom—the music “industry”— and music that comes out of the human imperative of expression within a social culture.

Clifford Allen and Matthew Shipp